Shattered
by Mastermind Sphinx
Summary: Ran's feelings regarding his sister over the course of the series. Warnings for one sided incestuous emotions. Written for Weiß exchange community on LJ a while back.


It was her fault, he'd said, as he barked the order to _stay back _while he picked up the mirror's stray pieces. She had been the one who started it all, running around the house wildly giggling like a little kid. He was 11 years old, too old for her little-girl nonsense, he should have known better than to give in.

She watched him from her perch upon their parent's bed as he tried to piece the jigsaw back together. He said words he wouldn't say if their parents were home, as slivers of splintered glass made their way beneath his nails and hot melted glue from the gun scalded his fingertips.

"I'm sorry Ran," she sniffed, hoping he'd let her risk stepping on a shard so she could leave. This was boring, even if he were doing it for her sake.

"Quit crying crocodile, I'm almost done."

"Hmph. You're going to have bad luck in seven years!"

"You're the one who broke it, it's your bad luck! And it's _for_ seven years, not _in _seven years dummy."

Shifting her weight to her elbows she leaned down the end of the bed to observe his progress. Her fragmented reflection looked back up at her, pretty face distorted.

"I think they're gonna know Ran."

"It's fine…. Shit." The last foul word was murmured around the wounded finger in his mouth.

She looked again, trying to see something she recognized as herself in the broken reflection. She couldn't find it.

"_The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it_."

-Sir Francis Bacon

All he had of her was a series of steadily blipping lines on a machine, a name, an earring, and a smattering of memories. Cruel, uncomforting reminders. Fragments.

He was without her smile, her words, her warmth, her hand's returning squeeze… Years, months, weeks, days, even slowly ticking-by seconds without these things caused the fragments of his memory to shatter further. He was beginning to forget.

Try as he might to glue the pieces back together, the resulting image no longer reflected the Aya he once knew. Yet he cherished it anyway. Held on to it. It was all he had.

Every argument, every fight, every annoyance, each and every time he'd ever thought of her as a _bratty little sister_ melted away leaving nothing but the beautiful, good and pure Aya. He could not go on as he was, a killer for hire destroying lives, if what he were sacrificing himself for was anything less. He couldn't do it if she weren't worth it.

He had always been her protector, her big brother. He'd always been there for her, loved her the way a sibling should. But his own self began to shift and change, leaving a distorted form of what once was. Her protection came at the sacrifice of everything he had, likely even his soul. His love for her was the one thing he could call his own, that he shared with no one, it was his secret and his reason. It became his obsession.

He didn't noticed the change in himself, in his love.

It was normal to hold the hand of a loved one who lay in a hospital bed. Even if it were an affectionate action one would never consider outside such a setting, it was simply what visitors in hospitals did. So he continued to hold her hand gently in his own whenever he came to see her and left flowers like daisies, yarrows and forget-me-nots upon her window sill when he went.

Things began to change, however. It had been an innocent occurrence at first. The flower shop had a surplus of roses left over from the holiday and though still pretty, they were too old to sell. So he brought her a vase full of the red blossoms with the thorns intact (since they weren't going to a customer).

The crimson petals brought a life that the room had lacked before and reminded him of the dress she'd worn to her high school dance mere weeks before the incident. He'd thrown a fuss over the high hem and low neck at the time, but thinking back she had looked so beautiful... From then he began to bring her all sorts of red flowers: camellias, carnations, tulips, and chrysanthemums. And occasionally he would kiss her cold hand goodbye.

When he'd met Sakura Tomoe, he'd been in shock over how much she reminded him of his sister. Her smile and laugh, her boldness and inner strength. She both attracted and repelled him. He'd find himself smiling at her quirks, yet easily snapping at her for her faults. Ran did not want to be drawn to her, it felt like betrayal. An affair, almost.

Later down the road, his teammates would learn about Aya and come to the _realization_ that Ran wasn't interested in Sakura because she was simply too much like his little sister and he would not correct them… He couldn't bring himself to believe that he did not return her feelings because she _wasn't_ his sister.

When he'd gone off to kill Takatori with the rest of Weiß, he did not expect to return alive. It was then that he was grateful for Sakura's love, as he truly had no where else to turn. He hoped that, if nothing else, she could be a friend to Aya when she awoke, and comfort her in his absence.

His haste words of goodbye to Sakura paled in comparison to the tears he'd nearly shed at Aya's bedside, recalling the night Takatori had taken her smile from him. The way he handed her the key was nothing like the tender grip he had upon Aya's fingers as he curled them back around her earring. There had been no soft kiss upon Sakura's cheek, perhaps a little too close to the mouth to be familial, before he went off into the night.

When he had transferred Aya to the new hospital, the staff assumed that she was his young wife. Same last name, yet they didn't look related with their starkly different hair colors. He could not bring himself to correct them, though everyone at Magic Bus Hospital had known that she was simply his sister. He'd flushed a little at the first slip of the word _wife_ from one of the nurse's lips, but kept quiet as something small inside him didn't mind the sound.

He was happy then, however fleeting that feeling was.

He had slain Takatori and avenged his sister. Construction was back breaking work, but it was honest. No more killing. Aya was safe, no longer a target since Weiß was gone. He could build a life now, create a home so that he'd be prepared for the day Aya woke up. He didn't think about her going to school, growing up and finding love of her own. All that mattered was that she'd be with him.

The months were blissful, but ended all too soon. He should have known that when you sell you soul there's no breaking the contract. He would always be Weiß.

Every minute of every day after her abduction crawled by in slow agony. He had not felt so much pain inside since he'd witnessed Takatori's car driving into her that rainy night. He was angry, but that was nothing new to him. His very existence after the incident was fueled by an inner rage that pushed him toward vengeance. What **was** worse than the anger was his overwhelming fear.

Weeks of frantically searching in the dark had lead him, along with Weiß, to Schrient's mansion. Only to watch her be stolen away by a group far more dangerous than Masafumi's lackeys. Schwarz.

Over the past two years many had questioned if Aya were his lover. Omi, Sakura, Botan, the nurses… And it had never bothered him. What bothered him was looking up into that Schwarz telepath's cruel blue eyes as his sister hung from his arms like a rag doll.

:_Tisk, tisk. Such thoughts! What would she think if she knew what her _brother _felt for her?…. I could tell her you know? Do you think she'd want to wake up to that?_:

The words echoed in his mind though the other man's lips did not move. Ran gritted his teeth and thought **SHUT UP** as loudly as he could, hoping Schuldig would hear it. There was no _reply_.

Relief washed over him as he held Aya in his arms after finding her hidden in a closet, wrapped naked in a sheet. He feared for what they had been doing to her, but the joy at having he back pushed worry aside. He would never let her go again, he swore to himself.

When they returned home, it was his duty to dress her. As her brother, he was the least inappropriate for the job. Thankfully he had another pair of the pistachio green pajamas like the ones she wore at the hospital.

Looking at her lying supine upon his bed, moonlight fluttering in through the window, she looked like an ethereal princess. She was _sleeping beauty_.

Ran's hands were shaking as he peeled back the blankets. She was his sister, his family, and she needed to be dressed. Many times throughout their lives he'd fastened a tricky button on one of her sleeves, or finished up the zipper on the back of a dress were their mother not around to do it. This was no different, he told himself with a deep breath.

He'd not seen her bare body since they were very small children sharing a bath. It had changed considerably since then.

Fingers shook as he tried to manipulate the cloth around her body without touching her, which was impossible. Her breasts pressed against his arm when he leaned her forward to work her arms through the shirt's sleeves. The limp, dead weight of her body offset by how warm her skin seemed to feel in the cold, dark room. Perhaps it was just him who felt heated.

By the time both arms were through the sleeves, his fingers were trembling so hard it was nearly impossible to close the buttons on her shirt. He urged himself to calm down but somehow couldn't manage it… Ran tried not to look or think as he slid her pajama bottoms up over her bare legs. Tried to make the task as mindless as possible…

As soon as she was dressed with the covers pulled back over her body, he bolted out of the room.

He cursed the water in the shower for not being ice as the chilly fluid rained down upon him. Even ice would not have been cold enough to kill the evidence of his shame.

:_What would she think if she knew what her _brother _felt for her?…. :_

Those words echoed in his mind again as he fought the urge to give in to his body's desires.

She was his little sister. He was supposed to **protect **her.

Rivulets of water masked tears, the first he'd cried in two years. He had failed her. There would be no _happy ending_ for the princess and her knight.

One day she would wake up, and he would be nowhere to be found. From the shadows he could watch her, keep lookout for dangers on the horizon, but he could not have the life with her he had imagined during those happy months without Weiß. For her sake, he would disappear.

Ran neither knew nor cared which of his teammates had used the bathroom after him, but he appreciated their silence on the subject of the broken mirror.


End file.
